Chapter: 5

Posted: 4/19/06

Chapter Rating: K+

Warning: None

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Konoha's Broken Feet

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When I think of the specific highlights of my childhood, my mind leeches onto the memory of my fifth birthday. There I was in my brand-new purple and pink kimono, though the thing was so large it continually fell off one of my shoulders, bothering me to no end. Throughout that day, I tired of my single ponytail and begged random adults to "give me pretty hair." I was obsessive over my appearance.

It had been a joint birthday, shared between myself and my nine-year-old cousin. She is married now. I used to wonder what it was like to be married, to have to spend the rest of your life with someone else, to pick them down to their average, daily routines. I had never liked the idea—not until I met that Uchiha boy.

I groaned and rubbed a hand across my eyes, puncturing the memories. That tune was stuck in my head again, damnit. I let my hand drop and gazed in a bleary stupor about my quarters.

I had been shifted in the past few days to a lighted, stone cell, complete with those classic iron bars installed straight into the rock. I had a cot in this place, as well as an accompanying sheet, rough as starch. That was it.

It was my fourth or fifth day in prisonment and still, I hadn't seen any sign of Sasuke in this place. I hadn't even spotted his look-alike since I was first brought here. There was only Kisame, and that nice medic nin who checked up on me sometimes.

I never told anyone I was a medic nin, myself—I was saving my chakra, and anyway, I had been too battered to make headway on my wounds before—not until the other medic had them already set. I had, however, taken liberties to fix my legs when no one was around. Nothing had happened.

I couldn't get myself to believe it. The chakra points in my legs were crushed, every single one of them. They were dead.

At first, I had been desperate. My only hopes of escape had sprouted themselves from the dream of running away. How could I outsmart these people if I couldn't walk? Damnit, what was I supposed to do?

They were the Akatsuki, I realized. They would kill me.

Mostly, in those days, I was alone. I would sleep for hours, and when I woke up, there would be a plate of food—mostly bread and chicken, sometimes tuna—and two cups of water set by the bars. Greedily, I would stuff my face, as it was my only energy source for the next twenty-four hours.

When I was bored, I would scratch pictures into the loosely packed surface of the ground. The nails of my index finger were blackened and gnawed within days.

I was certain I was going to die, eventually. My pack had been stripped from my shoulders—Sasuke's lock of hair and the "We have him" note must only have been lurement. For what, I don't know. Maybe I was bait for Naruto or the others. Probably Naruto. They wanted him, didn't they?

My biggest misery, surprisingly, was that there was nobody to talk to. I subconsciously began to talk out loud to myself.

……

"She never really did drink a lot," I was saying, "but when she does, she's out like a light. Mom's like that. I don't think I am, but you never know. I've never tried. Drinking, I mean."

It had been the fifth day, as I counted later. I was talking loudly to the walls, allowing my voice to rise in volume until my ears ached with its screech.

"I've always thought it tastes awful. I mean, honestly! Who would drink that stuff? Of course, Dad loves it. Gosh, what a moron. No wonder Mom says—"

"You are entirely too loud."

"—he never…" Needless to say, I shut up, and my eyes went to the other side of the room, to the shadows. It was where I imagined any respectable captor would first be spotted.

He was not there, however, but feet away from me, in the light. He allowed his weight to lean against the stonewall, head tilted slightly, his red-cloud cloak circling his feet.

I let the weight of my head fall against the wall behind me as I sought a better view of him. I could pretend he was Sasuke, come to rescue me.

His eyes, in the action of the sharingan, glanced over my slumped form; his face looked unamused, if anything. I had gotten good at reading Uchiha faces. "You haven't undergone your inspection," he said quietly. "Please comply."

"Who are you?"

Not a flicker. His eyes were very darkly lashed, I noticed. It was pretty. "Are you going to kill me?" I asked, much too at ease for my own good.

He lowered his eyes to the drawings I'd made on the floor. He bought more time before he answered. "Yes."

That woke me up. Dragging my head from the wall behind me, I sat up straighter, feeling my eyes stretch at the grit that had gathered there since my last sleep. "What?"

Without a movement, his eyes flickered up to mine for what seemed the first time, appealing, both dark and morbid. I watched his mouth open. "You…wish to live?"

"I want to go home." The words were half-hearted, as I wasn't sure how he'd react. He was a psycho, for God's sake. I was about to speak again when a sudden thought struck me dumb. The Uchiha clan… Sasuke was supposed to be the only survivor, not including… "Who are you?"

I expected some motion—a flick of the eye; the curl of a lip, but he offered me nothing. "Get up," he said.

I stared at him. It was obvious I couldn't stand on these legs. He's mocking me, I thought. Showing off. Yet his face wasn't etched in superiority—at least, not from what I could see.

Growing peevish with the silence, I turned my eyes on my crooked, broken legs. The medic had not splinted them, and so they stuck out at weird angles, bent underneath me. Had I had the materials, I would have done the job myself. As it was, I left them untouched.

"Did you not hear me, Little Flower?"

"You've—" I stopped myself and sighed, feeling my stomach restrict from lack of food. When would I next eat? "I-I can't," I said, wishing to weep. I waited for his reaction.

He said nothing for a long while, and when he looked down his nose at my two twisted limbs, I felt nothing in his gaze. "If I order something," he murmured, "do it."

"But I can't."

He studied the hem of his cloak as though he had fully expected my defiance. I felt my body draining of its upright posture. "Even you can't fix them?" he asked me. I could have wrung his throat for saying it.

As it was, I was mildly surprised at his hints of me being a medic, though I didn't say anything. I couldn't tell if he was looking at me or not and kept my silence in check.

"Very well."

I could feel the terror birthing in me for the first time in days. What had he said before? What about the inspection? I pressed my shoulder blades further into the stone behind me as he neared; I wasn't beyond noticing the fact he was careful not to scuff my drawings. The action alone didn't keep me from freezing as he descended, inches away.

He never touched me; he never even looked me in the eye. His gaze fixed with interest on the dull, dampened space of rock near my head instead. I followed his eyes but couldn't see anything that was of a threat there.

It was a long time before he spoke, but when he did, there was nothing in his voice but a dry smoothness. "You came."

I sought out his eyes, but still they wouldn't turn to me. I wanted to see… I had to see… "S-Sasuke?" I whispered. I must have been delirious—I had to have been.

His bloody-red gaze traveled idly up my shoulder, resting on the side of my face; he ignored my remark completely. "…We fought," he said.

I didn't say anything.

His eyes roamed higher still. "I used the Mangekou sharingan…"

I pressed my lips together.

His vibrant gaze went over my face, but there was no life, no focus there. "We have his body," he said.

On all counts, it could have been Sasuke's brother writing; "we have him" could have only meant they had Sasuke's dead body. I had thought that. I had thought that many times. I closed my eyes, not exactly sure how I was supposed to feel. Right now, there was an invisible fist twisting itself into my stomach. I found I couldn't cry, though I sure as hell wanted to. I couldn't in front of… I took a breath, but coughed it out. "You're Uchiha Itachi?" I managed to mumble. Now I was the one who wouldn't meet his eyes.

When he said nothing, I ventured on. "Can I see him?"

"…Yes."

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Author's Note: Not so very long, but I had to end it there. Forgive me, haha. We finally had some interaction between Sakura and Itachi, at last. I'd say this chapter is namely where the storyline starts picking up. Please inform me if you find and grammar errors or characters that are not acting as they should. I tried. Oh, and as a note - that whole beginning section comes (minus the kimono) directly from my childhood, from my obsession over my appearance, to the joint birthday, even down to my nickname, "pretty hair."

Now, let's get to the reviews…

Skogstroll: Yeah, I explained the "Sakura is a healing nin so why didn't she heal herself" thing at the beginning of this chapter. Thanks for the review!

DarkNightDreamer: Yeah, I don't know where the humming thing came from. I guess I wanted to make Itachi sort of human, you know. He must get bored sometimes. And yes, yes, there will be more "heat" in later chapters, haha. You make me laugh – see you next chapter?

silvya: Here is your update, lady (forgive me if you're actually a guy…) Enjoy.

Chapter 6 should be online in 5 days. Goal: 5 reviews. Come on, people, you can do it!